


Crossed Off The List

by Cena



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, What-If, alternate ending to the whitestone saga, continuing the list, talks machina inspired this so blame brian w foster, this was matt's idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 08:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15311397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cena/pseuds/Cena
Summary: A simple what if, born from Matthew Mercer's reply to the simple question: "What if the List had been completed?" Things don't often end so easily, Percival, and it definitely won't now.





	Crossed Off The List

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Talks Machina - Vox Machina Campaign Wrapup - Q38: What if Percy had killed everyone on the list?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/398133) by Geek & Sundry. 



Silence. At last…peaceful, serene, beautiful…silence. The night sky above shone with pinpricks of light. Percy often wondered what was there, at each point. Perhaps a portal to a new realm? Other suns like their own? It would be so nice to visit one and find out. Perhaps with the right propulsion system, he could achieve that one day.

_ Add it to the list _ , he thought, before sighing.  _ Well, one of the lists. One of the less-important lists. _

This thought struck him as a bit odd. When had innovation and the betterment of mankind become something for a less-important list?

And then, as if to remind him, The List (his armament) burned slightly in his right hand. He raised the pepperbox up into his field of vision. As he watched, the four remaining names on the bloody barrels facing him were crossed with a violet streak:

~~ VANESSA CYNDRIAL ~~

~~ LYRA ~~

~~ ZAHRA HYDRIS ~~

~~ MURTIN CYNDRIAL ~~

They faded away. As quickly as all the others had.

* * *

 

Orthax had offered him vengeance against the Briarwoods. At least, that’s how Percy had interpreted it, at first. He knew the truth the moment he put a bullet in Cassandra’s head – he’d been offered  _ vengeance _ . The very concept, and the tool to enact it. When her life ended, six more names had been added. 

And then he realized he’d just killed his only remaining family.

Vox Machina tried to talk him down. Scanlan, the fool, tied to Hold him, but Orthax gave him the strength to resist his attempt, and subsequently Keyleth’s. His new family was, understandably, distraught at his sudden turn, but the grief of having taken Cassandra’s life had broken him. And it was far too late.

Percy didn’t know how he’d made it out of the Ziggurat tunnel alive. After all, six of the greatest fighters in the world (three of them, adept magic users) were there to oppose him. The next thing he knew, he was running. The shadow of Orthax protected him as he fled Whitestone. Percy kept going. He had finished his job. Only when he took a breath in the forest beyond Whitestone did he read the first new name on the barrel:

TIBERIUS STORMWIND

It made a sick sort of sense. Tiberius had left before they arrived in Whitestone. He had abandoned Vox Machina.

“He…he went to find help. With his family. The Stormwinds are powerful allies, surely. Besides…he is my friend. I would not dare hurt him.”

_ You killed Cassandra. She was blood. What is he? A pompous dragonborn, far too arrogant to understand his true station. _

He didn’t know if that was his thought or one corrupted by Orthax. Either way, Percy was not about to resign himself to this fate. No one else would die. He would not allow it.

Orthax, however, had other plans.

After the blackout ended, Percy found himself laying in his lab Greyskull Keep. The first thing he noticed was the blood dripping from the ceiling. Dragonborn blood. The second thing that he noticed was the blood pooling at the stub where his left arm used to be.

* * *

 

Months had passed. Tiberius had been the first name, and Anna Ripley was the second. She was far easier to kill, not being a powerful sorceress, but tracking her to Ank’Harel had been difficult, though not impossible. She was clever, but he was cleverer. 

Percy still wasn’t entirely sure how he was alive all this time later, but he assumed it was because Orthax was now consuming the souls of those Percy’d killed. Now that the full terms of their contract had become known, Percy felt that taking advantage of these powers was the smart thing to do. In the meantime, the next four names were pulsing more and more each day. 

Percy had tried destroying the gun, but as Orthax had grown, so had its command over Percy. The new arm Orthax had granted him pulsed with extreme pain as he tried to do so.

_ You have a job to do, _ his mind told him. 

And he did that job. Orthax had shown him the way to lead four of the Slayer’s Take’s finest (well, three and Lyra) into a trap. The ensuing fight tired him beyond belief, but he’d managed it. A bullet in each of their heads (except for Lyra, who had been burned to a crisp by an explosion).

He wondered why Orthax deigned to have him seek vengeance against those four, but he knew – the Slayer’s Take business had been a waste of time. He could have killed the Briarwoods a full week earlier had they not been forced to partake in that timesink.

The flames around him started to spread. Surely a wildfire in the Vasper Timberlands would catch the attention of some hunter or Bastion. Even so, he was tired. Perhaps this time, he would face judgement, though the judgement of Vasselheim, of those outside his affairs, hardly mattered. As he lay there, blood splattered on his face, he thought, for the first time in a while, of her.

“I wonder what Vex is up to,” he muttered.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. That was a thing. Thanks for sticking around, guys. This was my first fic/drabble/anything post in a public fic place in AGES. So I hope it's to your liking! I'm going to go cry at the idea of Lyra actually dying.


End file.
